Sleepless in Midland

Feel good story of the week -- Lost wallets returned in experiment

It was a broad experiment spanning several countries. And it involved wallets with and without cash in them. The mechanics of the experiment were described in Civic honesty around the globe, and scores were tallied on how many of the wallets were returned. It turned out that more likely than not, the wallets were returned.

That's the good news. But the results varied from country to country. And with the exception of Mexico, those countries from which the migrants are massing to try to enter the U.S. were not tested.

The United States ranked in about the middle of the pack, but it was interesting to see which countries were in the top and bottom ten.

The top ten were Switzerland, Norway, Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden Poland Czech Republic, New Zealand, Germany, and France.

The bottom ten were Turkey, Ghana, Indonesia, United Arab Emirates, Malaysia, Kenya, Kazakhstan, Peru, Morocco, and at the very bottom, China.

The whole list, available at the linked site, has been reproduced on the right.

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1:20 PM 6/22/2019

Spring forward to daylight saving time -- OK, but can we leave it there for good?

Here we go again. Twice a year we have to reset our timepieces if we want to stay in sync with practically everyone else. But it's such a hassle, and anything that requires us to adjust our biological clocks is a nuisance.

Last year Senator Marco Rubio introduced a bill which would make Daylight Saving Time permanent. Unfortunately, the bill went nowhere.

Senator Rubio, this time with the Senator Scott, the other Florida senator, introduced another bill which would do the same thing.

Can't they just do it this time?

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2:18 PM 3/9/2019

Comity, togetherness, full bellies, and pleasant times. Ah, Thanksgiving!

There are so many things for which to be thankful -- primarily that we were lucky enough to have been born in the U.S. For a clue of why we are lucky, ask a few of those people clamoring to get in.

Meanwhile, for an inspiring list of reasons to be thankful, see Ben Shapiro's article: The Ungrateful Nation. The title is misleading. Americans are indeed grateful, and he gives plenty of reasons why.

Happy Thanksgiving!

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4:03 PM 11/21/2018

Project Spartacus -- no, not Cory Booker -- a different kind of pulse attack

Anyone who read "One Second After" by William R. Forstchen had the living daylights scared out of them as they pondered what their own lives would be like following an Electro Magnetic Pulse (EMP) attack. We all probably figured that we would not be among the 90% who perished during the first year without electricity.

There have been lots of meetings designed to encourage those in the industry to harden their facilities and equipment against the kind of surge an EMP could produce. But it's hard for the outsider see that anything has actually been done, other than hold meetings.

Nonetheless,Lt. Gen. Steven L. Kwast has organized another meeting. See ‘Project Spartacus’ aims to save electric grid from nuclear, solar attack:

Kwast has created “Project Spartacus” to address an electromagnetic pulse type attack of the grid, either from an enemy or terrorist group or solar storm. At his summit, 40 national organizations and 150 governmental officials met in the largest official EMP meeting of its kind.

Former CIA Director R. James Woolsey weighed in:

“If you have 30 to 40 percent of the electricity, you may end up having cold showers and warm beer but at least you can continue to function and rebuild. If the whole grid goes down, you are back in the dark ages literally and figuratively,” he told Secrets during the summit.

“If you end up with zero instead of 40 percent, for example, it’s not just that you have a serious problem with rebuilding, it’s that your civilization and constitution are gone. That’s the end of everything,” he added.

Let's hope they came up with something that will prevent that happening.

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1:39 PM 9/11/2018

Spring forward, Fall back -- Hell, just pick one and stick with it

Twice each year we disrupt our circadian rhythms to accommodate this government mandated ritual. Daylight Saving Time by itself isn't so bad. The problem is the switch. There's really no rational reason for it other than the inertia in place from having endured it for half a century.

Floridians are so focused on gun control that they may not hold the governor accountable if he ignores recent legislation. The legislature submitted a bill that, if signed into law, would submit a request to the U.S. Congress for permission to go on permanent Daylight Saving Time.

The state of California is trying to exempt itself from federal immigration law, but that's probably not going to set any binding legal precedent. But if it did, then maybe states could ditch the time change on their own.

Here are some sites with related news:

Florida wants to tinker with time. Will it be the end of the clock as we know it?;
#LockTheClock - Stop Changing Clocks for Daylight Saving Time;
Florida passes daylight saving time bill, but what does it mean?.

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12:28 PM 3/10/2018

Falling back -- why do we put up with this annoying time change?

I wish our esteemed leaders would pick one -- daylight saving time or standard time -- and stick with it. This ritual of changing our clocks twice a year is so unnecessary that it can only be explained by government's obsession with control. Early Romans were so obsessed they changed the length of an hour in a range from a low of 45 minutes in the winter to a high of 75 minutes in the summer in proportion to the length of daylight. Source. Thank goodness that technique didn't endure. But at least their system had some relationship with actual daylight hours.

The general excuse for the current DST was energy savings. But evidence to support that is flimsy.

The Texas Legislature meets every two years, and like clockwork, someone introduces a bill to terminate DST. But like HB2400 in 2017, those bills never reach the governor's desk. Apparently, there isn't enough citizen interest in the subject to get lawmakers motivated -- no opportunities for graft, as some cynics might say.

Meanwhile, there's a C-Span video of a talk by Michael Downing, author of "Spring Forward: The Annual Madness of Daylight Saving Time," available for viewing at this link. (Requires cookie acceptance.) As you can tell by the title, Mr. Downing isn't a big fan of DST, but kudos to him for finding a way to capitalize on it.

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10:18 AM 11/4/2017

Abortion vs anchor baby -- Conservatives chose life

Many conservatives are against both abortion and illegal aliens having anchor babies. So it must have been a moral dilemma for some when a pregnant teenage illegal immigrant wanted an abortion.

But the conservative have to be given credit for taking a side in the Jane Doe case. Where did they stand? The sanctity of life outweighed their opposition to anchor babies.

That seems like a very principled stand, and the right one for their principles. They lost the battle, though, and the teen got her abortion. See Undocumented teen immigrant has the abortion she sought for weeks.

Aside: Generally, I'm neutral when it comes to abortion. Both sides of the argument make good points. And in this one the teen made the best argument.

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9:16 AM 10/26/2017

State law should preempt local traffic ordinances re texting while driving

Ordinarily I'm all for federalism, local rule, and all that the founding fathers envisioned. But they couldn't have imagined how fast we could travel in the future. And given how widely Texans travel in their own vehicles, the prevalence of local laws that vary from the state law merely set up traps for unwary drivers -- like speed traps of old, which were merely revenue raising devices mainly targeting non-locals. And the most horrendous part of most traffic laws is that a violation requires no intent whatsoever. Common sense should tell us that traffic regulations should be uniform to the extent that they don't create some undue burden due to some unique local situation.

So it's nice that Texas Governor Abbott has included in the current extended session a request that the new state law against texting while driving preempt local ordinances. Will they hand the preemption bill over to the governor for signing? With only a few days left in the special session, we should know soon.

While we can still vote with our feet and move to a jurisdiction with laws we like to live under. Local traffic laws give municipalities to much capacity to become highway-robbers targeting travelers. I would like to think our founding fathers would approve giving the state priority.

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2:05 PM 8/4/2017

Soldier gets out of vehicle, stands at attention as funeral passes, in the rain

There was a coach at a local junior high school who, when a funeral passed on an adjacent busy boulevard while the kids were outdoors, required that the students under his tutelage kneel on one knee as the procession passed. Everyone who witnessed it thought it was an honorable thing to do.

Here's one that's even better. The Tennessee Army National Guard Colonel photographed by a passerby exited his vehicle and stood at attention as a procession passed. But kicker is that it was raining!

What a guy. Little wonder that the general public holds members of the military in such high regard.

Via WTSP.com via Dailymail.co.uk.